Issues & Views:The rap contagion

April 4, 2005

An unpopular truth

The rap contagion

What's to be done after a poison has been released into the bloodstream? When, back in 1996, Delores Tucker began her campaign to raise public awareness to the socially and spiritually destructive nature of "rap" music, she and the other blacks who supported her crusade were subjected to virulent verbal attacks. And when Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, led a similar campaign to denounce the "spirit-killing" vulgarity at the heart of rap, he fared no better.

Now, almost a decade later, the contagion, initially spawned by desolate, angry products of turbulent households, has spread more deeply into mainstream society and has evolved into an animus known as "hip-hop." Picked up, exploited and disseminated by an amoral breed of commercializer, the poison now infects vast numbers of youth.

In "Gangsta GOP," on "Davey D's Hip Hop Daily News," a white father, identified as John Kressler, is quoted as either boasting or complaining that his "good, Christian son" has been convinced through this musical genre "to act like a little gangbanger from the inner city," has "adopted some of [the] habits, values and mannerisms" of his favorite rapper, and "walks around the house mimicking this new African American rap style of speech."

Last month in New York City, a capacity crowd over-filled an auditorium to listen to a panel of men and women discuss "the impact of misogynistic rap on black women." The event's organizers appeared to know why they were there -- to candidly air their views on what they consider the corrosive impact of rap/hip-hop's toxic lyric content on both young men and women. It turned out that a large number of those who attended also came with an agenda -- to defend their hip-hop "artists" and "culture."

Among these defenders were a multitude of women, who claimed to be fans of the music and its graphic videos. According to Essence magazine, a sponsor of the event, 10% of hip-hop audiotape and CD purchases are made by black women, 18 to 34. Of course, it's hard to determine the accuracy of this figure in light of the Essence claim that only a miniscule 7% of black males, 18 to 34, purchase these tapes and videos. Are we left to speculate that the balance of this bilge is being bought by youngsters like Mr. Kressler's "good, Christian son?" It is a maxim, often repeated, that the major purchasers of this pseudo-ghetto sludge are young white males.

With a population of females who enjoy the degrading lyrics and pornographic images of women as worthless, throw-away objects of pleasure, it's no surprise that the meeting, intended to "debate" the controversies surrounding rap, devolved into chaotic shouting matches. Views of the panelists were met with jeers, boos and catcalls from the audience. One report claims that the session "ended abruptly, with little solution-oriented discourse." Delores Tucker and Rev. Butts could have told them that and saved the expense and disappointment.